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Geography
Thinking Geographically © Beverley Paine, August 2007 [this article forms part of a series on Geography you can buy as a Practical Homeschooling booklet from Always Learning Books] Did you know that geography is simply the study of place? What are some of the things you can know about the place where you live? Thinkin geographically involves exploring the following five themes and building up your knowledge in each area. The more you know about the geography of a place the more you can understand why human society and different cultures, because where we live has a huge impact on how we live. As you spend time exploring and thinking about the following themes you might like to gather and record your information. What kinds of ways can you share what you know, or keep it so that you can refer to it later? One of the reasons we collect information and record it is so that we can monitor change over time and learn why change occurs. This is how we learn to adapt our environment to our needs, and how we can adapt better to suit our particular environment. Location: Gather together some maps that show your town. Compare these maps. You should have some maps that are local, that is, they show your town in detail relative to nearby towns. Hopefully you'll have some maps that show your town in your region, as well as your state, and where it is in relation to the rest of Australia. Spend some time discussing your town's location relative to some of the major landmarks in your state. Place: You know your town well because you visit it regulary. Describe the town's people, animals, and some of the features of the landscape. If you can, find a topographic map and try to locate some of those features on the map. Make lists, or better still, create posters of charts that look at each category in some depth. You'll find that once you start exploring some of these ideas you'll be creating lots of different categories - sociey, like life, is incredibly diverse! who are the people that live in town, around the town, further out? Some questions you might investigate are:
Human and Environment Interaction: Describe some of the changes they have noticed that are caused by people, such as new buildings being constructed or the opening of a new park, and explain how these changes might affect the area's animals and plants. Movement: How long have people lived in your town? Did people always live here, or did they come from somewhere else? Where did they come from and why? What made this place attractive for settlement? Has the population of the town changed over time and if so, what caused the changes? Region: Every town is situated in a region and that region is usually identified by it's geography - how the land is formed and how people use it. Does your region have a name, such as the Fleurieu Peninsula or the Limestone Coast in South Australia? Explain what makes your region unique and different from other parts of Australia. It might be it's climate, it's industry, it's history... or all three! Or maybe something completely different... Once you've explored and investigated your town in this geographically way you can pick another town, maybe one far away, in another country even. Comparing different areas and towns teaches us so much about humanity and this wonderful world on which we live! Some questions to think about:
Did you know that... Geography is immersed in technology and that a sound knowledge of geogrpahy will help you in whatever field of work you pursue when you graduate homeschool. Geographic knowledge is gained through using maps, satellite images and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and learning how to use these tools imparts technical skills that are easily transferred to other areas. By studying and learning about geography, you will be learning how to:
What is important to remember is that you learn skills by practising them rather than reading about them! |
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network.
Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home.
In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and became a committee member in 2008: she also edits and produce the HEA Newsletter, HEA magazine, Stepping Stones for Home Educators, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications.
If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Homeschool AustraliaFacebook page.